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Asher looked up at the apartment building, mentally counting his way to Kelsey’s windows. The studio windows were still glowing with light. He thoug
ht of her smile, the smell of her skin, the feel of her heartbeat when he’d held her close, pretending to be her dead husband.
He turned away and walked to the curb. He waited for a yellow cab to pass, throwing up dirty, gray slush in its wake. He stepped off the curb….and into the realms of Light.
The sunlight was blinding. He was standing at the crest of a steep, grassy hill overlooking a deep valley. The breeze was warm and sweet, rippling the tall grass into waves all around him. Down in the valley on either side of the silver river, he could see the seraphim encampment, a hundred pure white tents pitched in perfect rows.
Other seraphim came out of their tents as he came into the camp, calling out greetings. All of them looked curious; a few came to embrace him. Some of the young ones looked afraid. It had been a thousand years since his last visit home; they were probably afraid to hear why he had come now.
Michael the Archangel was alone in a tent that looked no different from any of the others. His head was bent over a chessboard, a familiar sight to all his seraphim, no matter how long they might have been away. He was dressed as always in a patched tunic stained as if from armor with leather boots and leggings to match. His dark hair was cropped close as if to accommodate a helmet. Like all angels, Michael lived in all moments of human history at once and none at all, but he had adopted the costume of a knight for as long as Asher had known him. His handsome face was scarred with five white ridges slashed deep into his sun-bronzed skin—Lucifer’s final blow as he fell from grace.
The archangel must have been surprised to see him after so long with no warning. But he barely glanced up from the chessboard. “The prodigal returns,” he said, moving a knight on the board with the ghost of a smile.
Asher unsheathed his sword of light. He had been entrusted with the sacred blade on the day of his making, and no other angel had touched it since. It was a concrete manifestation of his mission, as much a part of his identity as his corporeal form. “More prodigal than you know.” He knelt and offered the sword to Michael.
Now his captain looked shocked. “What is this?”
“I’m resigning my commission.” He was surprised by how easy it was to say the words. “I’m no longer fit.”
“Not fit?” The archangel’s pure white wings rustled, twitching like a hawk’s before the strike. “Who are you to say so?”
“I am falling,” Asher said, forcing himself to face his captain’s gaze. “And I have endangered a mortal’s soul.”
“How so?” Michael didn’t take the sword. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Asher told him everything from the first moment he’d seen Kelsey in the cemetery. He told him about Jake lingering at the gateway between worlds, about reading Kelsey’s letter and agreeing to impersonate her husband to comfort her. “I wanted her,” he said, trying not to sound as guilty and helpless as he felt. “Her husband sent me to comfort her in his shape, but I wanted her for myself.”
“Of course you did,” Michael said. “With his heart and his memories, how could you not have? But did you act on that desire?”
“No,” Asher said. “Not…I kissed her.”
“I have no interest in details, soldier,” Michael said. “In your judgment, did you take advantage of this woman’s grief to satisfy your lust?”
“No,” Asher said. “I could have. I wanted to. But I didn’t. I intended to never see her again. But matters became rather more complicated.”
Michael smiled. “They always do.”
He told his general about his conversation with Lucifer the next morning. Finally, he told him about seeing her again that night. “She saw me,” he finished. “I didn’t intend to be seen, but she could see me.”
“You didn’t want to reveal yourself to her?” Michael said.
“Consciously, no,” Asher said. “But subconsciously, I must have.” An angel’s ability to watch over a human unseen was one of his most basic, most vital powers. “And that’s bad, right? It means I want to be known by her, that I still have feelings for her.”
“Feelings aren’t really my area,” Michael said with a wry smile. “But I’ve never thought of them as inherently bad.”
“Desire?” Asher said. “Jealousy? Covetousness?”
“Love?” Michael suggested. “Just because Lucifer confused one with the other doesn’t mean you will.”
“But I could,” Asher said. “And my interest has already made Lucifer take notice of her.”
“You don’t know that,” Michael said. “She was considering suicide when you met her, wasn’t she? Isn’t that why you first made contact with her? To save her?”
“Yes, but once I actually met her, once I touched her…I don’t just want to protect her, Michael. I still want her. I can’t stop thinking about her and how it felt to be with her. I am jealous of her dead husband. I hate that when she thought I was him, she wanted me, but when she met me tonight…I hated that I was a stranger to her.” Michael was studying his face the same way he had studied the chessboard. “Lucifer knows how I feel. He told me I would destroy her.”
“And so he would do in your place,” Michael said. “But you are not your brother.” He reached out and gripped Asher’s shoulder. “He is the Father of Lies.”
“But how can I take that risk?” Asher asked. “I have the same free will as any mortal. I can fall. And I can resign my commission.”
